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I've spent the past week blowing (ha!) through the Fifty Shades trilogy (Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed by EL James.) These were so fun to read. And no, not just for the dirty bits.

As many know, Christian Grey and Ana Steele (the main characters) started their fictional existence as Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, in the form of Twilight fan fiction. I found several similarities throughout the two series, a friend of mine who read Twilight after reading Fifty Shades did not see as many.

A qualm that I have with the character of Bella is that she is not well developed. She is a blank canvas that teenage girls draw themselves onto. Ana is more developed, perhaps that is due to her being older (23 vs 18), than Bella. Ana is stronger than Bella, she knows what is important to her and she fights for that. Christian is a great character, his development over the trilogy is immense. He is not a very deep character, but that may drill down to narration. My annoyance with the characters drilled down to the way they voice their insecurities with each other. ::SPOILER ALERT:: Ana, constantly needs Christian to validate that he is OK being in a non-BDSM - bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, sadism, masochism - relationship. Christian constantly needs Ana to promise that she won't leave him.

OK, let's not forget the sexy bits. Oh, my. James has a very thorough imagination. The trilogy (I hate to use this term for something other than an epic fantasy tale) is approximately 1,000 pages. Every 15 or so pages has a sex scene - some more descriptive than others - my suggestion for anyone who blushes easily is to read this in the safety of their home.

Now, please excuse me while I scoop my mind out of the gutter and move on to something a bit more "vanilla".

I would recommend these books to... someone who will not file sexual harassment charges against me for making the suggestion.